A Croft in the Hills E-Book

Katharine Stewart

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 304

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A Croft in the Hills, first published in 1960, is now acknowledged as a classic among Highland books. It captures, in simple, moving descriptions, what it was really like trying to make a living out of a hill croft near Loch Ness fifty years ago. A couple and their young daughter, fresh from city life, immerse themselves in the practicalities of looking after sheep, cattle and hens, mending fences, baking bread and surviving the worst that Scottish winters can throw at them. Their neighbours are few, but among them they find the generosity and community spirit that has survived in the Highlands for generations. Working as a tight family unit, they learn to cope, and in time grow to love their little croft. 

Leseprobe

A CROFT IN THE HILLS

Other books by Katharine Stewart include:

Crofts and Crofting

A Garden in the Hills

A School in the Hills

The Post in the Hills

The Crofting Way

This eBook edition published in 2013 by Birlinn Limited West Newington House Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QSwww.birlinn.co.uk

First published in 1960 by Oliver and Boyd A new edition published by Melven Press in 1979 Reset edition published in 2005 by Mercat Press This edition published by Birlinn Ltd in 2009

© Katharine Stewart 1960, 1979 and 2005

The moral right of Katharine Stewart to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-84158-791-2 eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-751-6

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION to the First Edition

FOREWORD to the First Edition by NEIL M. GUNN

FOREWORD to the Second Edition by EONA MACNICOL

I Divine Discontent

II The House on the Hill

III Winter and Rough Weather

IV Cuckoo-snow

V First Harvest

VI Ceilidhs

VII The Piglets Arrive

VIII Five Years A-growing

IX An Impromptu Holiday

X ‘Grand lambs!’

XI The Big Gale

XII Shining Morning Face

XIII ‘Gaudeamus Igitur’

XIV A Dinner of Herbs

XV We Wear the Green Willow

XVI A Stormy Christmas

XVII The Still Centre

XVIII The Way Ahead

ENDPIECE

TO MY FAMILY

‘All of you with little children . . . take them somehow into the country among green grass and yellow wheat—among trees—by hills and streams, if you wish their highest education, that of the heart and the soul, to be completed.’

Richard Jefferies

INTRODUCTION

to the First Edition

WHY, you may ask, record the simple fact that three people took to the hills and lived quiet lives under a wide sky, among the rock and heather, working with the crops and beasts they could manage to raise there, in order to feed and clothe themselves. There is certainly little room for dramatic highlights in this story of ours. But we heard the singing and we found the gold. And I believe that each small stand taken against the shrill wind of disenchantment which is blowing across the world has more positive human value than many of the assertions being made by science today.

Science says: ‘Here is a stone. It weighs so much. It measures so much. It is so-and-so many years old.’ But a man needs to discover that the stone is strong, so that he can stand on it, and cool, so that he can lay his head against it: that it is beautiful and can be fashioned as an ornament, or hard and can be built into his home.

How does he make these discoveries? With his own eyes, his own wits, his own imagination. His assessment of the stone includes a measuring of his own stature. And as his hand passes over the firm surface his brain is alert, his imagination lit. He is alive.

If the human being is to hold to his identity, he must, somehow or other, keep on making his own discoveries. The tragedy of today is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for him to do so. He is even in danger of becoming a back number, for the powers that would govern his life have found that the machine is, for competitive purposes, so much more efficient and reliable than he is.

When you have lived for a few years in the bare uplands, where life has been precarious from the start, you learn, first, not to panic. Then you are ready to love wholeheartedly what need no longer be feared. You become so deeply involved in the true drama of cherishing life itself that mere attitudes and the pursuit of possessions are discarded as absurd. You discover that under snow there is bread, the secret bread, that sustains.

Panic gone, you can plot a course with steady hand and eye. And, after all, human steadfastness is the only ultimate weapon fit to guarantee survival in a real sense.

That is why I thought it worthwhile to record the process by which three small human beings, completely re-enchanted with their world, found the strength to walk without fear among the astonishing beauty of its wilderness.

I should like to thank Mrs. Anne Shortreed for capturing so delightfully, in line, the spirit of life in the uplands. And my special thanks go to Mr. Neil Gunn, who gave the book his blessing.

KATHARINE STEWART

FOREWORD

to the First Edition

by

NEIL M. GUNN

The typescript of this adventure story reached me out of the blue— or very nearly, for the croft is about a thousand feet above Loch Ness: marginal land, hill-top farming, where on a February morning the blue may be vibrant with lark song or obscured by a snow blizzard. This is the oldest of all Highland adventures and will be the last. It is heartening and heart-breaking. Why do people go on thinking they can make a living out of a hill croft? In particular, what drives strangers, not bred in crofting traditions, to make the attempt? This is the story of such an attempt, with all the questions answered, and it is told so well that I find it absorbing.

For the author and her husband see everything with new eyes. They meet their problems as they arise, and they arise daily. Their capacity for work is all but inexhaustible. If I hesitate to use the word heroic it is because there are no heroics in this human record; only day-to-day doings, the facts of life, but, again, facts that spread over into many dimensions, the extra dimensions that give the book its unusual quality, its brightness and its wisdom. For the attitude to life is positive; it somehow contrives to survive the frustrations; and that today is rare. Often, too, this is seen in coloured threads running through the main texture, as in the growing up of their child to school age and her responses to the myriad influences of the natural scene; or in the spontaneous help given by, and to, neighbours at difficult or critical times—the old communal warmth that survives the hazards, or is there because of them.

I commend this book to all those who are interested in such things and may have sometimes wondered if there is any meaning in the ancient notion of ‘a way of life’.

FOREWORD

to the Second Edition

by

EONA MACNICOL

It is a great honour for me to be asked to introduce this reprint of A Croft in the Hills. The book gave me great delight when first it appeared, I treasure my copy; and I am happy that now many more readers may enjoy it too.

I am myself of the old stock of Abriachan, the place which the author chose for her brave venture into crofting life, I have therefore the keener interest in it. But I know that through this book, and through the Folk Museum with which she has more recently been associated, Katharine Stewart has illuminated the crofting life not only of Abriachan but of the Highlands of Scotland.

CHAPTER I

DIVINE DISCONTENT

WE had both, since our earliest days, found it difficult to live in a city. Every free half-day or week-end, every summer holiday, had found us making for the nearest patch of country, anywhere where we could breathe and smell the earth and see the sky in great stretches, instead of in tiny squares between the huddled roof-tops.

I shall always remember walking down Oxford Street, during a war-time rush-hour, and finding myself nearly losing my footing among the crowd, because my mind’s eye was fixed on the rim of a steel-blue Highland loch, and I was smelling the scent of the bog-myrtle and hearing the weird, lonely cry of a drifting curlew. Jim, at that time, used to stand, during the brief spells of leisure his exacting job afforded, gazing through the huge, plate-glass windows of his place of work and seeing, beyond the racketing crowd, an oasis very like the one I had wandered into.

Later, we managed to make some sort of a compromise. We lived on the edge of the country and he went off to work at an unearthly hour of the morning, clad in the respectable black coat and hat of the city worker and shod with large, hobnailed boots (which he changed on arrival), for the two-mile walk to the bus. In the evenings I would go to meet him and in still weather I would hear the ring of the hobnails on the road long before he came in sight.

We had a garden; we had trees and the sky in stretches; we grew vegetables; we kept bees and hens and ducks. But the journeys to and from work were exhausting, though Jim would never admit it, and compromises are never really satisfactory. We were chafing against the tether.

Then Jim’s work took him to a small town in the north of Scotland. That was the end; city life is bad enough but small-town life is far worse.

In a city one has, at least, the feeling that there are thousands of kindred spirits about, if one only knew them, folk just as dissatisfied as oneself with the mechanics of living, who know that it is not enough to have acquired some little skill or other, which will enable one to make enough money to buy shelter and clothing and food, so that one may continue to employ one’s skill so as to be able to go on buying shelter and clothing and food, and so on... ad infinitum. In a city there is at least a spark of the divine discontent, an only half-submerged longing to catch a glimpse of the larger design, but in a small town everyone seems so glad of the boundary wall.

By this time our small daughter, Helen, was growing into a sturdy youngster. As I wandered hand in hand with her, back from the shops and along the row of trim villas to our home, I found my mind straying, as it had done years before in London, to some imagined remoteness.

I pictured Helen splashing in a hill-burn in summer, rolling like a young Sheltie in the snow in winter, racing the wind on the moor, gazing at birds and minute creatures among the grasses. ‘Sheer nonsense!’ a small, nagging voice would hiss in my ear. ‘A child needs all the amenities of town life—a good school and lessons in music and dancing, and all the other benefits civilisation has to offer. Without them she’ll only grow into a hopeless misfit.’ But... would she? Wouldn’t it be better for her to have at least a glimpse of the roots of things, not allow her to accept life as she would a shining parcel neatly wrapped in cellophane? Wouldn’t close contact with natural things give her a perspective and a poise she would never lose? I firmly believed it would.

Jim worked long hours; sometimes it was late evening before he reached home, and he would have to leave again in the morning without getting more than a glimpse of Helen. We both knew that it was only half a life we were living.

We had bought, very cheaply, because it was in an appalling state of neglect, a house in a good residential district of the town. We had done it up and found that light paintwork everywhere and the installation of electricity and some additional plumbing transformed it into quite a pleasant place. We tackled the wilderness of a garden and cleared a plot for vegetables. There would be room to keep some hens and even a goat, we decided. We would be able to unearth the beehives we had brought from our southern garden and there were some derelict stable buildings where we thought we could perhaps grow mushrooms.

But there might be objections from the authorities. We still felt hemmed in, particularly as we knew that all our outdoor activities were discreetly observed from behind impeccable net curtains by our distinctly circumspect neighbours! There was no doubt about it, we were getting restless again.

We began to scan the columns of various newspapers, under jobs, houses, houses, jobs. Could we get some sort of a joint post which would allow us to live in open country with security? We made one or two abortive attempts in this direction, and also inspected several smallholdings on the outskirts of the town.

Then we saw it—an advertisement for a seven-roomed house, in a place with an excitingly unfamiliar name, with forty acres of arable land and an outrun on the moor, for the comparatively small sum of five hundred pounds. We got out the map, found the spot and repeated the name out loud, looking wonderingly at each other. Music was sounding in our ears.

Instantly, our minds were made up. It was within quite easy reach; we must see it, just see it, at least.

On Jim’s next free day we got out our old van, packed a picnic, opened the map and set off. Through Inverness we went, and along the shore of Loch Ness, to a point about half-way to Drumnadrochit. There, a small road branched off from the main one. There was no sign-post, just this rough-shod track, pointing skywards. ‘This is it!’ We beamed at each other and put the van sharply at the rise.

We climbed slowly, changing gear every few yards, one eye on the panorama spread out below us, the other on what might emerge round the next blind corner ahead. After about a mile of this tortuous mounting we found ourselves on more or less level ground. Hills rose steeply on either side. There were small fields carved out of the encroaching heather. Croft houses were dotted here and there and there was a school, a tiny post-office and a telephone kiosk.

We made inquiries and found we had another mile or so to go. We came within sight of a small loch, lapping the foot of a shapely hill. It was remarkably like the Oxford Street oasis.

We branched right at this point and the landscape opened out into great distances. Another half-mile and we left the van at the roadside and took, as directed, the footpath through a patch of felled woodland. Then, at last, the roof and chimneys of a dwelling came into view. We stopped at the stile and took a long look at it.

Four-square and very solid it stood, facing just to the east of south, its walls of rough granite and whinstone, its roof of fine blue slate. Beyond it was the steading and in front a line of rowan trees, sure protection against evil spirits, according to Highland lore. A patch of rough grass all round the house was enclosed by a stout netted fence and on either side of the door was a small flower bed.

Round the house and steading was the arable ground and beyond that the moor, rising to the hill-land and to farther and farther hills against the horizon.

It was May and the warmth of the sun was bringing out the scent of the first heath flowers. A small, soft wind out of the west blew on our hands and faces, a bee hummed through the springing grass at our feet. The flanks of the farthest hills were swathed in blue mist.

We saw the good lady of the house. She pointed out the boundaries and we talked of the various possibilities of obtaining a piped water supply. The only well was a good hundred and fifty yards away, and below the level of the house. But she had had a diviner out and her son had started to dig for water at a spot indicated by him, within a stone’s throw of the house. We gazed hopefully into this chasm and agreed that it would be all to the good if water could be found there.

The house was in an excellent state of repair; over the lintel was carved the date 1911. We learnt later that the house was actually built in 1910, but as the mason found it easier to make a 1 than a 0 he engraved the date as 1911! We also learnt later that in former times practically every crofter had a trade at his finger-tips, which he practised along with the working of his croft. This house, like nearly all those in the district, had been slated by the man who was to become our nearest, and very dear, neighbour.

Downstairs were two good-sized rooms, one stone-floored, the other with a new floor of wood. The stone-floored room had originally been the kitchen, but as the cooking was now done in a built-on scullery the range had been removed, the original wide hearth restored and a most attractive chimney-piece of rough, local stone built round it. Off this room was a small bedroom and a door leading to the substantial scullery. Upstairs were two good bedrooms and a box-room with a skylight.

Our experience with our town house had taught us what points to look for in examining property. The walls and wood-work were shabby but the structure was sound and weather-proof. It was the sort of house you could start to live in right away.

The steading was of the usual Highland design—a long, low building divided into three parts—byre, stable and barn—with thick stone walls and a roof of corrugated iron, and like the house it was in excellent repair. Beyond it were the ruins of the ‘black house’ (a small stone cottage, thatched with heather, its walls blackened with peat-reek), which had been the original dwelling on the holding. Opposite the steading, in the shelter of four giant rowans, was a small wooden hen-house.

The fields had been cultivated only spasmodically over the last years, but they had a healthy slope to them, and we knew that it was possible to obtain grants and subsidies for ploughing-up and fertilising such marginal land as this. Only a small area in the one level part of the arable ground was really damp and choked with rushes. We reckoned that a good clearing-out and a repairing of drains would help there. The rough grazing gave promise of a good summer bite for sheep and hardy cattle.

The fencing was patchy, to say the least of it, but we had already noticed on our way through the felled woodland the quantity of quite sound wood that was lying about. Some of it would surely be fit to make into fencing posts, and we knew of an excellent scrap-yard in Inverness where wire could often be picked up very cheaply.

The access road for vehicles was shared by our two immediate neighbours to the east. (In Scotland, as nearly all the glens run roughly east and west, one always goes ‘east’, or goes ‘west’, when visiting neighbours.) We could see that deliveries of heavy goods would have to be made during the drier months, as the road surface was distinctly soft, but it seemed to have a reasonably hard bottom and livestock could be loaded at a fank at the side of the main road.

The only thing that did really worry us a little was the lack of shelter. The woodland, which had formerly broken the force of the wind from all the southerly points of the compass, had been felled during and after the war. The view from the scullery window at the back was superb, but there seemed to be little but the heady air between us and Ben Wyvis which lay, like a great, dozing hound, away to the north.

But it was May-time and one of May’s most glorious efforts in the way of a day—warm and sweet-scented and domed with milky blue. It is difficult on such a day really to visualise the storm and stress of winter.

We walked to the limit of the little property and stood looking down the strath. Several small, white croft houses stood on either side of the burn flowing down its centre. The fields adjoining them looked tidy and well-cultivated. Plumes of smoke rose from squat chimneys. Here and there were the ruins of former houses, where one holding had been incorporated into another. There was, on the whole, a feeling of quiet snugness about the prospect. It seemed incredible that we were standing nearly a thousand feet above sea-level.

Probably an upland area such as this would never have been settled at all had it not been for the clearances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One certainly shudders to think of the labour that must have gone into the wresting of the small fields from the bog and heather. The dry-stone dykes remain as memorials to those who heaved the mighty stones out of the plough’s way and made the crops sheep- and cattle-proof.

The crofters’ tenacity and innate gift for husbandry had resulted in their being able to maintain their families in health in these surroundings. Could we, who had so little experience, reasonably hope to do the same? We had health and strength and a tremendous appetite for this kind of life; we each had close links with the soil. There were Government schemes of assistance undreamt-of by the older generation of crofters and we could realise a certain amount of capital. We were braced and eager to take the leap.

With Helen staggering ahead of us, a bunch of small, bright heath flowers in her hand, we made our way back to the house. I think the lady in possession must have read her fate in our faces. She gave us tea and we told her, as sops to our conscience, that we would think it over and let her know our decision in a day or two.

Quietly and methodically she told us that there was a postal delivery every day, that an all-purpose van called every Wednesday and another on Saturday, but that, as it was often the early hours of Sunday before this latter one arrived, she preferred to deal with the Wednesday one. Small parcels of meat and fish, she said, could be sent through the post.

We made a mental note of all the information she gave us, thanked her and walked slowly back to the road. We did have a look at another place on the way home, but it was quite out of the question, twice the price and very inaccessible and, as the French have it, it ‘said nothing to us’.

The house on the hill was already making its voice heard. All the way back in the van we listened in silence to what it had to say. It was a supremely honest little place. It hid nothing from us. Its fields had been neglected, its access road was little more than a track, its water supply was altogether unhandy. In winter it was liable to be cut off by impenetrable snow-drifts. But—it offered a challenge. We had enough imagination to visualise its possibilities and most of its impossibilities. Experience had taught us that the worst hardly ever happens, and if it does, it can usually be turned into a best.

Our minds were seething with positive plans. All traces of discontent, however divine, had vanished utterly.

CHAPTER II

THE HOUSE ON THE HILL

WITHIN a week the deed of purchase of the house and land was signed and sealed by us. Occupation was ‘to be arranged’. This meant that the seller would be leaving very shortly and that we should take over in the autumn.

Immediately we set about selling our own house. We knew this would not be difficult as it was now classed as a ‘desirable residence’ and was much sought after, occupying, as it did, a most favoured site in a most favoured neighbourhood. The angels had been on our side after all. Like fools we had rushed to buy it, only wondering by what stroke of luck we had managed to get it so cheaply and easily. Not until after the sale was concluded did we hear the gruesome rumour that the roof was afflicted with dry rot. For several days we were haunted by this nightmare, till a thorough investigation by the builder called in to do the repairs assured us that the rumour was completely ill-founded. There were traces of the activity of woodworm in some of the cupboards but of dry rot there was no sign. So we were able to dispose of our house with the greatest ease and at a considerable profit.

Meantime, we besieged the local offices of the Department of Agriculture and loaded ourselves with pamphlets concerning grants, subsidies and so on. We discovered that we were eligible for a grant of fifty per cent of the cost of an approved scheme of water installation for the house and steading of the croft; that some of the land would qualify for the ploughing-up grant of five pounds an acre and that we could get help with the buying of lime and fertilisers.

We then called at the North of Scotland College of Agriculture, in Inverness, and were told that their expert would come out to take a sample of the soil in the various fields, for analysis, so that the amount of lime needed could be accurately determined, and that he would draw up a complete cropping and stocking programme for us, all this without any sort of fee. Another expert, a lady (later on referred to affectionately as the ‘hen wife’), would come to give us advice on all matters relating to poultry-keeping.

Everyone was most friendly and helpful and charming. Helen would sit on my knee during the various interviews and would almost invariably end up with a peppermint to suck or find herself carried off to the typists’ room, to be beguiled with bangs on the typewriter, when business was not too pressing! All in all, we felt surrounded by a solid wall of encouragement and goodwill.

Once a week we set off early, to spend a long day at the croft. We cleared rubbish from the outbuildings and repaired the garden fence; we prospected for wells and picnicked on the moor, or in the empty living-room if it was wet. We made the acquaintance of our nearest neighbours and began to get the feel of the place.

About this time, a piece of land to the west of our croft came on the market. It had been bought some years previously by an Inverness man, who meant to run Highland cattle on it. His plans had fallen through and he wanted to dispose of the land. As it would give us some sixty additional acres of good rough grazing, we decided to make an offer for it. So, for ninety pounds, it became ours.

The seller wished, however, to retain the mineral rights. This intrigued us. We made inquiries and discovered that when digging a drain he had come on several deposits of blue clay. He had had an expert from London up to examine these and had been told that they might be of commercial value, but only if found in sufficient quantity to justify excavation. Later on we turned up quite a lot of this blue clay when ploughing our own ground. We sent a specimen to the Geological Department of the Edinburgh Museum and the opinion we received on it tallied with that of the London expert. We are still hoping we may find a use for it some day.

In the meantime this addition to our croft land has provided us, in addition to the grand grazing, with a supply of first-class peat—the black, well-seasoned stuff which cuts into hard, stiff blocks and gives a much hotter fire than the brown, crumbly variety.

Another find on this newly acquired land was the ‘golden’ well, so called because of the brilliant marsh-marigolds which grow in the boggy ground all round it. This had always been a death-trap for sheep and other animals. On a hungry spring day, irresistibly attracted by the fresh, green growth, they would plunge into the bog for a bite and get engulfed. During our second summer, after we had lost a ewe lamb in this way, Jim cut a channel for the spring overflow and the ground round about is now quite hard and dry. Could a scheme be devised there is enough water in this source to provide a piped supply for all the crofts lower down the strath.

Our search for water near the house had become almost an obsession. We grudged the expense of laying a long pipe-track from the existing well, even though we should have to bear only half of it ourselves. Some further digging in the hole already begun revealed nothing, not even a trickle. We got in touch with another diviner and watched, goggle-eyed with fascination, while the stick jigged and cavorted in his hands. It seemed there was water here, there and everywhere. At last he selected a spot above the level of the house, whence a supply could gravitate easily to a downstairs tank. Our hopes ran high. The digging started but, after three days’ heavy work, all that we came on was a thin, muddy trickle which would not pass the analyst’s test.

We decided to seek Government approval for a scheme to install a pump at the existing well, which would raise the water to the level of the house. A sample of this water was found to be quite satisfactory and the Department of Agriculture agreed to give us a grant of fifty per cent of the cost of the work.

As the profit on the sale of our town house had been a substantial one, we decided to have some plumbing installed at the croft and to wire the house for electricity. We had been assured that a main supply from the Hydro-Electric Scheme would be available within the next few years. In the meantime the wiring could be connected to a cheap, wind-driven dynamo to provide us with light though not with power.

We looked on this expense as an investment. It would increase the value of the property and it would pay dividends in other ways. Spared the drudgery of incessant water-carrying, we should have more time and energy to give to productive work and I should be able to get quickly through my household chores and be free to take a proper share in the outdoor jobs. The electric wiring we intended to extend to the steading, in part of which we were going to keep hens, on the deep-litter system, with a light to encourage winter egg-production.

It was difficult to find men to tackle the work on the house. Jim was still busy at his job and had only a very limited amount of time and the place was too difficult of access for men to come out daily from Inverness.

Finally we accepted the quite moderate estimates of some young tradesmen, just setting up in business, who would live on the job if we would provide them with the necessaries for camping in the empty house. We gladly agreed and they took up all the bedding, pots, pans, crockery and so on, we could spare, in a lorry, on the day of their preliminary investigation.

There were the usual delays, for material was still difficult to come by. Mid-October came, the time we could spend at the croft grew shorter as the days drew in, and still the main work had not been begun. We were afraid the frosts would set in before the pipe-track was dug.

Jim packed up his job and we decided to move by the first of November. Then the men really got busy. On our last weekly visit we found the place reverberating with hammer-blows and cheerful whistling and shouting and clanking.

The day of our arrival came at last. The removal people had sent too small a van with the result that two journeys had to be made. We had to spend an extra night in town, as it was too late to make the trip ourselves that day.

Next morning, when we reached our destination, we were greeted by the sight of half our worldly goods standing stacked at the roadside. Furniture, books, pictures, pots and pans stood there, looking forlorn in the chill, grey light.

We had arranged with a neighbour to ferry our belongings from the road to the house on his tractor-trailer, as the van could not manage to make the journey to the house with the access road in its wintry state. Luckily this neighbour had had the good sense to cart all the bedding and really perishable stuff along to the house the day before, and the night had been fine, so no irreparable damage was done.

We changed into gum-boots and started right away to rescue the most precious books, as the sky was clouding and rain threatening. At once we were overwhelmed with goodwill. The tractor came lurching into view and strong arms soon had another load secured. Our eastward neighbour appeared at her door as we passed and offered to take charge of Helen for the day, so that we could get on with the work as quickly as possible. They were already firm friends, she and Helen, and we gladly agreed. On arrival at the house we found a roaring fire in the kitchen, more cheery faces and a welcome brew of tea.

All day the tractor plied back and forth with load after load of goods and chattels. There was hammering and singing and mud and plaster everywhere, but by tea-time we had everything under cover and the beds made up, so we fetched Helen from our kindly neighbour. The men brought pail after pail of water from the well and we all ate an enormous meal of ham and eggs. I even managed to give Helen her tub, as usual, before carrying her through the ‘burach’ to the safe oasis of her bed. Then we lit a fire in the great hearth in the living-room and sat round it, all six of us, till our eyelids drooped.

Those were happy days as, slowly, our house began to take shape. The men were up at six and had a fire in the kitchen for me to cook breakfast. After dark they worked on by the light of oil-lamps so as to get done and, as they put it, ‘out of our road’. Secretly, I think they were missing the pub and the cinema of their little home town. Certainly their singing and whistling grew more light-hearted and obstreperous as they kept up their spirits till the time came for their release. But they were good sorts and did their best in what were, for them, difficult and unusual conditions.

We celebrated Helen’s third birthday with a cake I had made weeks before. Our black Labrador presented us with a litter of pedigreed pups. At last the men completed the plumbing and wiring and departed with cheerful waves and ‘rather-you-than-me’ expressions on their faces.

Then Peter, a young friend of ours who was waiting to start a new job, came to help Jim dig the trench for the water pipe. For nearly three weeks they dug, pausing only for meals and fly cups of tea. Sometimes they would be lost to view in the mist, and only the ring of the pick and the scrape of the shovel told us they were still hard at it. But the job was accomplished, though we were still to wait a long time before the water would flow from the tap.

Meantime, I was clearing rubble from around the outside of the house and making a gravel path to the door so that some, at least, of the mud would not be brought inside on the soles of our boots. I got to know the ways of my new oven and I carried water, and more water!